


kokeilla kepillä jäätä

by escherzo



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Columbus Blue Jackets, Fluff, Getting Together, Languages and Linguistics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 12:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16304993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: “I feel Murr is European,” Nutivaara said of his defense partner Tuesday. “I think so. You ask other guys like Korpi (Joonas Korpisalo). They will say the same thing.”Pressed on the matter, Nutivaara slightly amended his comments. “Murr is at least 40 percent European,” he said.





	kokeilla kepillä jäätä

**Author's Note:**

> Summary, and large majority of inspiration for this, is from [this article](https://theathletic.com/582452/2018/10/11/theres-a-case-to-made-for-keeping-ryan-murray-and-markus-nutivaara-together-once-blue-jackets-blue-line-gets-healthy/)
> 
> There are a couple of Finnish phrases included in this fic. I do not know Finnish, and could have had them checked if I wanted to explain to my father _why_ I needed them checked, but I would like to retain some measure of dignity so they are all via papa Google. Apologies to any native speakers for any language mangling contained herein. Title is, if said Google can be trusted, the idiom "to test the ice with a stick". The only other phrase that is not immediately obvious via context is Ryan apologizing for not knowing Finnish (in Finnish). 
> 
> We're all trying to get that 8-2 game out of our mouths. Have a palate cleanser.

_“I feel Murr is European,” Nutivaara said of his defense partner Tuesday. “I think so. You ask other guys like Korpi (Joonas Korpisalo). They will say the same thing.”_

_Pressed on the matter, Nutivaara slightly amended his comments. “Murr is at least 40 percent European,” he said._

*

The other Canadians on the team probably would have made a Thing of it, if he'd directed it at them--”hey, look, my parents sent me a picture of them. At home. You know, where they live. In Canada.” _Definitely_ the Americans would have. Dubi would have been wearing gaudy flag t-shirts in the locker room for a week. Murr has always been much more understated. It's one of the things Markus likes so much about him. 

Midway through a jam session about a week after the interview, Murr pauses between songs and then gets a big, goofy grin on his face before picking out the notes to “O Canada”. He looks right at Markus and raises an eyebrow. 

“He did say sixty percent not European,” Korpi, who's sprawled out beside Markus on the couch, offers. 

“It's true,” Markus says.

“You said it the other way around,” Murr says, still grinning, and Markus shrugs like, well, what can you do. 

*

“We should teach you Finnish,” Korpi suggests one afternoon, midway through his unnecessarily complicated method of making coffee for everyone—“it has to be _right_ , Nuti, go away.” “You don't have to stare at it the whole time, it's not a puck”--at his apartment. 

“Me?” Sedsy asks, vague dread in his tone. “No, no. I learned English. That was hard enough.” 

Korpi rolls his eyes. “No, not _you_. I was talking to Murr.” He's been crabby with Sedsy the past few days, on account of Sedsy having accidentally scored a goal on him in the middle of a game. It was a lovely goal. Or would have been, if it had been in the right net. 

“I guess I could try,” Murr offers, taking a sip of the coffee he's handed. He does a good job of hiding his grimace. Markus will give him that. Korpi insists on being trendy and trying out fancy dark roasts, and so all of the coffee he makes ends up being too strong and not nearly the sort one can just casually drink a few cups of in one sitting without vibrating out of their chair. Attempts to make him see light and reason have failed entirely.

“Finnish is very hard,” Korpi begins, “but I can teach you how to say hello. You might need to practice it.” He has an excellent poker face. Markus, on the other hand, has to bite the inside of his cheek to not start laughing, knowing where this is going to go. 

“Okay,” Murr says, looking determined. “Teach me.” 

“Hei,” Korpi says. 

Markus covers his mouth with his hand. The giggle escapes anyway. 

“What is it actually, it's not _hey_ , c'mon.” Ryan says. He frowns. 

“It is,” Markus says from behind his hand. 

“Don't listen to them,” Sedsy says, patting Murr on the shoulder. “Silly. Learn it in Czech instead. Ahoj.” 

“Matey,” Murr adds, unable to help himself, and then grins at his own joke. 

“Arrr,” Sedsy agrees good-naturedly, and then he takes a drink of the coffee Korpi handed him and it becomes more like “arghhhh”. They're really going to have to do something about this. Sedsy is used to Turkish coffee, and if even he thinks it's too much, well.

Ten minutes later the all-the-Europeans-and-also-Murrs group chat has a picture of Sedsy with an eyepatch and parrot doodled on. Murr is more of an artist than he lets on, really. It's a masterpiece. 

*

“Really will teach you,” Markus tells Murr later, after the others have left on a beer run and they're lounging around on the couch, shirtless, watching the credits scroll on their movie. It took a little while for Murr to not make a thing of casual partial nudity outside a locker room context, the same sort of self-consciousness that a lot of the North American guys have, but it is awfully hot in this apartment. “Not just hello.” 

“I...” Murr trails off, cheeks pink. He stares at the floor instead of at Markus when he says, “It's a lot harder than Swedish. I've been trying, but, uh, anteeksi, en puhu suomea.” 

Markus laughs, delighted. “You were playing along earlier.” Murr's pronunciation isn't very good, but he can tell that he's tried to practice it. 

“A little,” Murr says, shy. “I really don't know much. I got through one lesson in Rosetta Stone before I got frustrated. But if you want to help, I, um. I could teach you Swedish and you could do Finnish for me?” 

Markus waves a hand, dismissive. “Wenny will think I learned it for him and his head is already--” He's stuck for a moment, trying to figure out what English word for “really big” sounds right and settles for miming it instead. “Teach me guitar?”

Murr smiles. “I can do that.” 

*

“Huomenta,” Murr says brightly one morning, settling into the locker stall across from Markus, and Markus is still so sleepy and so on autopilot that he responds, automatically, “Good morning to you too.” 

Everyone else is staring. 

“Uh, Murr,” Fligs begins, a little on the crazy-eyes side, “ _how_ many languages do you know?” 

“One?” Murr says, scratching at the hair at the back of his neck. His face is a little pink. 

“Two,” Wenny corrects. 

“Uh, three,” Duke adds. “Mostly.”

“My French is really bad,” Murr says. “And you guys learned it in school too.” He gestures vaguely towards one of the Canadian clusters of the locker room.

“Yeah,” Andy agrees, “but we don't _remember_ any of it. Hey, Duber, tell him something in French.” 

Duber obliges, and the pink on Murr's face deepens. “I am not,” he says, ineffectually trying to ward Duber off before he gets pulled into a side-cuddle and drawn into a rapid-fire conversation in French. 

“Really bad,” Fligs mouths, wiggling his eyebrows, and Markus grins. He's not going to bother explaining that he's been teaching Murr Finnish right now. It's more fun to let them tease him about being a polyglot. 

*

On the ice, he and Murr don't need words in any language. There's something that clicks into place when they're together, a sense at the back of his mind of exactly where his partner is. It's as easy as breathing. He drops a pass behind him, blind, and Murr is there to catch it and fire it on goal. They stay late after practice, sometimes, and he skates up to Murr, close, murmurs, “Close your eyes,” and then does the same as they pass back and forth. True blind passes. They still hit the mark most of the time, even so. He knows what the scrape of Murr's skates on ice sounds like. The space his body takes up. 

This might be temporary. They don't know if they're going to be together once Jonesy gets healthy and he and Z are reunited. It's still nothing like he's had before; it's going to be hard to lose it. 

Sometimes they'll run a drill together and at the end Murr will look at him and ask, soft, “hyvä?” and yes, it's good, he's good.

*

It's not that he's European, exactly, upon reflection. He has some of that temperament to him, of course, a natural tendency towards openness, an easy-going temperament—except towards himself, and Markus has had to work with him on that. It's more that, as they get more comfortable being partners, sometimes Markus hears Murr ask him in Finnish if he did good on their last shift and he gets unbearably homesick. 

It's more that he just—reminds Markus of home. 

*

“I tried making something,” Murr says when he answers the door. They've both been experimenting with cooking, lately, getting each other to try the results. Markus burnt his cabbage rolls horribly the other day, and Murr ate them anyway and did an admirable job pretending to like them. This, though—it smells...

“Did you make--”

Murr smiles, ducking his head. “I might have messaged your sister for your mom's rye bread recipe, yeah.” 

“You know how to make bread?” Markus asks, and his heart is so full he feels like he might burst. He can't help but smile too. 

“I have a mixer and a dough hook, I managed.” 

Markus is not going to kiss him on the spot, although he very much wants to. He has bread to try first. 

*

“Remind me to thank Sofia,” Markus says, halfway through a mouthful and already cutting off a second slice and spreading it thick with butter. It's not exactly like his mom's, but it's close. 

“Rhrgh mrgh?” Murr asks, the little shit, miming chewing, and Markus flings the last of the butter on the knife at him. “Hey!”

It lands right on his chin and sticks there. 

“Let me teach you something,” Markus says, because he can't not, not when Murr looks as cute as he does, not when he slid into his sister's DMs to get this recipe. “Pidän sinusta hyvin paljon.” 

“What does that mean?” Murr asks, and Markus's heart goes double-time. He gets up and walks to the other side of the table, and Murr gets up too, facing him. 

“I like you a lot,” he says, soft. 

“Oh,” Murr says, just as soft, and then he smiles and repeats it back. “Obviously,” he adds. “However you say that.”

Markus reaches out to brush the butter off his chin and then cup his cheek, and Murr is already leaning in when their lips meet. 

They click like this just like they do on the ice.


End file.
